


i'd go the whole wide world

by susiecarter



Category: DC Extended Universe, Suicide Squad (2016)
Genre: Eggs, Gen, M/M, Pining, Post-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:40:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25232527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/susiecarter/pseuds/susiecarter
Summary: "What—what the hell is that?""Egg," Croc says, a little defensively and a little like he thinks GQ's an idiot.Which is fair enough, because yeah, that's totally an egg.
Relationships: GQ Edwards/Waylon Jones
Comments: 64
Kudos: 215





	i'd go the whole wide world

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amaronith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaronith/gifts).



> Happy birthday, amaronith! This is ... definitely only a first installment, but I promised you GQ and Croc and an eggbaby of their very own, and here's the beginning, at least. :D ♥!
> 
> To everyone else: I swear I am almost done spamming you guys with notifications! At least until Superbat Week starts, that is. /o\ I really struggled with tagging this, because it's not kidfic (yet) and it's not even entirely shipfic (yet), but GQ's having feelings and there's some tension happening, and also they rescue an egg and GQ helps Croc start figuring out how to take care of it. *hands* THAT'S IT, THAT'S WHAT HAPPENS. Please be willing to roll with my handwaving of all the reasons this probably wouldn't work out in the canonical world of Suicide Squad, and enjoy!
> 
> Title borrowed from [Whole Wide World](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d6iRjYy7mI) by Wreckless Eric, because that's what was stuck in my head while I was finishing this up today.

It starts with the thing with the underground lab complex.

Big one, like a dozen different floors and sections branching out, all dull gray concrete and hard blue-white lights set at ridiculous angles, throwing nonsensical shadows. Bubbling tanks everywhere, cloudy water with vague shapes drifting in it, colored mists spilling out of beakers. Creepy as hell, frankly, and that's before you factor in the part where the Squad's handling it because the whole place is festooned with booby traps. Waller doesn't want anybody valuable blowing it up by mistake.

They're doing okay. Taking it slow. Just trying to clear the place, make sure there's nobody left in here, see whether any of the weird stuff in those tanks starts climbing out on its own and coming at them.

GQ is the lucky winner who got to carry the backpack that had the signal jammer stuffed in it. Once he's got a general feel for the dimensions of the complex, the size of the place, he picks a relatively central location and hauls it out, sets it up—should be big enough to reach through basically the whole place and keep any alarm signals from getting out, or anybody who _is_ left in here from calling for backup.

Once it's good to go, he slings the empty backpack back over his shoulder by one strap, and goes poking around for real.

The first thing that happens when he rounds a corner and almost walks into Croc is that it scares the shit out of him. " _Jesus_ ," he says, half-strangled, heart palpitating like wild.

And then the second thing happens, which is that he gets his head on straight, blinks, and looks at what Croc's holding.

"What—what the hell is that?"

"Egg," Croc says, a little defensively and a little like he thinks GQ's an idiot.

Which is fair enough, because yeah, that's totally an egg.

Big one. Almost a foot long, end to end. White, kind of chalky, hard-shelled. Round, oval, instead of tapering. Whatever's going to come out of there, GQ thinks, it sure ain't going to be a chicken.

And Croc's got his big hands curled around the egg, cradling it against his chest. Kind of—kind of _protectively_.

Motherfucker.

Okay, GQ thinks distantly, so it's actually a really good thing that he's the one who got stuck lugging around the jammer.

"You know you can't walk out of here with that thing, right?" he says, quick, quiet, just over a whisper.

Croc's face goes blank. He doesn't move.

"Croc, man," GQ repeats, "you can _not_ just walk out of here with that thing. Give it to me."

Croc's jaw goes tense. His eyelids flicker, half a blink. He's still holding the egg against himself, elbows angled out protectively, shoulders hunched. He obviously doesn't want to give it up, which GQ would have a lot more patience for except they've got to get this done before somebody else comes along.

"Give to me," GQ snaps, more sharply. "Come on, quick."

Croc looks away, at the floor instead of at GQ, and turns his wrist grudgingly, the barest degree—so his hands are under and over instead of around, which gives GQ a opening to reach in there and take it from him.

Damn, it's warm. Feels weird. All the eggs GQ's ever handled in his life have been refrigerated.

"I'll be careful with it, I swear," he says, and is: traps it gently against his chest with one forearm, hand around the end of it, so he can sling the backpack down between his knees with the other hand, pin it with one foot and yank the zipper open. It'll definitely fit—and once they've done the first sweep, another team of people who actually know what they're doing are going to come in here. Somebody'll retrieve the jammer; it won't matter that GQ's walking out of here without it.

Which doesn't answer the question of how the hell he's going to sneak this fucking dinosaur egg or whatever into Belle Reve, but hey. He'll cross that bridge when he comes to it.

"What was it in?" he asks, belatedly. "Was there a control panel or something? Temperature settings?" He pauses and glances up, starting to zip the backpack shut again. "Or—don't suppose _you_ know how warm it needs to be?"

He stops. Croc's staring at him.

"You ain't breaking it," Croc says slowly.

"What? No! Why would I—jesus, is _that_ why you didn't want to give it to me?"

It's a stupid question; Croc's face says already that it was, and shit, GQ thinks. Shit. He'd done it anyway. He thought GQ meant they couldn't take it at all, that he was going to destroy it or something—and what the hell kind of grounds did he think he had to object? GQ'd insisted, and he'd handed it over.

Shit.

"No way, man," GQ says, trying to keep his voice level and only mostly succeeding. "I mean, don't get me wrong, that would probably be the smart play, because it's going to be a bitch and a half to pull this off. But if you want the creepy lab egg that's probably a fucking dinosaur, then you got it."

Croc looks at him for a minute, and then his mouth moves just a little. "Not a dinosaur," he says. "I can smell it." He stops. "It's like me," he adds, quieter. "Sort of. Not exactly. But close."

"It's like you," GQ repeats, looking down at it, zipper almost drawn shut over the smooth white curve of it.

"Close," Croc agrees, in a low rumble.

"So you _do_ know how to—?"

He's not sure how to finish the question, what words to use. He glances up at Croc again, and Croc's face is shuttered, Croc looking away again, like he's talking to the wall instead of GQ.

"No," he says, really quietly.

GQ feels like an asshole immediately. Because the thing is—he's only realizing right now that he doesn't know what that answer really means. He doesn't know a damn thing about where Croc came from, about how it happened. Whether Croc hatched out of an egg, too, but never had the chance to learn from anybody like him exactly how it had happened; or whether he'd been born, except with scales. Whether he had a family—whether it had been a good thing or a bad thing.

"Okay," GQ says. "It's okay. We don't need reptilian instincts, we got Google." He zips the backpack shut the last handful of inches, and hefts it up onto his shoulder. Man, that's kind of heavy. "I'll figure it out. I'll take care of it until I can get it to you. All right?"

Croc looks at him—reaches out and clasps his hand, helps pull him to his feet and then doesn't let go. GQ can feel his ears getting hot, with those steady pale eyes on him—

"All clear down here?" somebody shouts.

"Clear!" GQ shouts back, and gives Croc a weird stupid little nod, and then gets his ass in gear.

He's going to need Flag.

There's no way around it. He can come up with a good half-dozen ways to get everything inside Belle Reve, but they're all contingent on Flag knowing what he's trying to do and clearing it somewhere along the way. He can circumvent some of the security measures himself, but not all of them.

Flag, of course, gives him an incredibly flat stare for asking.

"You want to bring something in," he repeats levelly, "for Killer Croc. But you don't want it getting checked, or scanned, or searched."

"Look, it's not like it's anything useful," GQ says. "He's still going to be in prison. He's just going to be in prison with a thing he wants."

Flag sighs a little through his nose, which isn't super promising. "GQ—"

"Boss, come on. Lawton's killed way more people than Croc has, and he's a hell of a lot more of a flight risk—he's got half a shot at disguising himself, if he tries. And he gets off-campus privileges, model student that he is, but I can't bring Croc a fucking present? Are you serious?"

Flag flushes a little, cheekbones and the tips of his ears, and clears his throat, rubbing at his mouth. "Look," he says, and then stops. "Look, GQ, what is it?"

"I can't tell you," GQ admits.

Flag's mouth flattens; but he doesn't say no, and he doesn't tell GQ to fuck off. He gives GQ a long look instead, and then closes his eyes and rubs the bridge of his nose. "Jesus," he mutters under his breath. "Okay, fine. You swear to me on your life, on whatever the hell Waller's going to do to both of us if she finds out about this, that whatever it is you want to get in there, it isn't something he can use to get out?"

"I swear," GQ says instantly.

"And it isn't something he can use to kill anybody?"

"My hand to god."

It's probably true. Depends on exactly what comes out of the egg, but—Croc said it was like him, and Croc's cell is already doing a damn good job holding Croc, so. It's got to be able to handle Croc plus a lizard baby or whatever.

"I really should not be helping you do this," Flag says ruminatively.

"Probably not," GQ agrees. "But I know—I know you get it."

Flag looks at him.

"They're people," GQ says. "You know that. They're people, and they should get to feel like they are. They should get to have things that make them feel like they are. Or—" He gestures a little, helpless. "Or else why should they act like it? Why should they believe it, if we don't give them any reason to think it's true?"

Flag ducks his head. "Yeah," he says softly. "I do know that. Okay. All right. I'll take care of it, GQ."

"Thanks, boss," GQ says, and makes a break for it before he can change his mind.

So: Flag's got him covered. He gets the stuff inside.

Lugging it all the way down to Croc's cell is a pain in the ass—and of course he's got to drag it in through the feeding tunnel instead of coming in the normal way, to keep himself off the interior cameras.

Croc's cell doesn't have cameras, though. The water is the problem; hell of a lapse in coverage, all that area they can't see through. There's a bunch of other sensors and shit in the walls, the floor, the ceiling, so they can tell if Croc tries to dig his way out through the concrete and stone, or bends the bars, anything like that.

But they don't have sensors lining the feeding tunnel, because who wants those going off every damn time they tow a cow in here?

GQ took the hook they use for the meat with him—gets the package on it and lowers it down, shoulders burning, and lets it drop in the water, and then turns the hook around so the curved end is up top, catches it on the edge of the tunnel and climbs down to the handle, until he's low enough to let go and land with a splash.

By the time he does, Croc's already there, drawn by the noise.

"Hey," GQ says. "Told you I'd get it to you."

"GQ," Croc rumbles, and it comes out low and warm and so pleased it makes GQ's ears hot.

He clears his throat, ducks down and grabs it: big tub, and it's not too big for him to lift but it is pretty fucking heavy, so he doesn't tell Croc off for sloshing over to take one end from him.

They haul it around and into the main room, and heave it up next to the sofa before climbing up out of the water. GQ cracks the lid, and the seal held after all—it was watertight, and the sand's dry, the egg packed in safely on top of it in the padding he'd made for it, not so much as a crack.

Croc reaches in around him and picks it up, smooths his hands gently over the shell; and GQ tries real hard not to watch him do it, focusing on digging the lamp out of where it dug itself into the sand.

Croc's got electricity down here now, with the TV wired up. It takes five minutes, pliers with a built-in wire cutter, and some electrical tape to splice the lamp into the circuit.

"You can tell 'em that's what I brought you," GQ says, once it's mounted on the wall.

Croc looks at it, and then at him.

"Heat lamp," GQ explains belatedly. "Egg needs to stay warm, but—I figured you might like it, too."

He switches it on. Nothing catches on fire; nothing even throws sparks. Success.

"Keep the tub on that side of the sofa," GQ adds, "and they won't be able to see it from the corridor. And even if they do, I brought you the sand because odds are that egg's better off buried. Needs kind of a nest dug for it."

"Okay," Croc says.

And then there's nothing for it but to watch.

It's kind of weird. Makes GQ feel self-conscious, kneeling there looking down over the arm of the sofa, while Croc's holding the egg in one hand, scooping some of the soft dry sand aside to make a hollow for it with the other. GQ read a lot of stuff about crocodiles, alligators—he's not even sure which might be the most relevant, which is closest to what Croc really is. Not like "Killer Croc" is a scientific designation. Some of them make nests, build mounds and stuff. But there's something Croc seems to like about the sand; he slows down a little, runs his fingers through it, makes a low rumbly noise in the back of his throat that doesn't sound pissed off. So maybe GQ did guess right after all.

When the hole's big enough for the egg, Croc nestles it carefully in there, nudging it around this way and that. Fussing with it, GQ thinks, and then has to try to hide a smile.

And then Croc stops, and looks up at him. "Go on," he says, low.

"What? Oh, no, you can go ahead and—"

"Go on," Croc repeats, and what the hell's GQ supposed to do with that?

GQ swallows, and bites his lip, and then leans down over the arm of the sofa and touches it.

One hand, that's all. He spreads his open palm out against the surface of it, fans out his fingers. Funny; he's been worrying over the damn thing for days now, toting it around, hiding it, getting all this shit together, trying to keep it in the right temperature range. So much on his mind he hadn't ever really stopped to just—feel it.

Damn, it _is_ warm. Croc would have been able to tell, if GQ had managed to fuck up and kill it. He'd have smelled it. But right that second, GQ doesn't need him to. The egg _feels_ alive, like this.

It's kind of awesome.

And okay, GQ's been doing this for maybe a little too long. He coughs, self-conscious, and looks up, and then for a long, long second, he's caught: because Croc's just looking back at him. Croc was watching him, the whole time, and there's something kind of soft about the look on Croc's face, soft and weirdly warm and kind of thoughtful, nothing GQ's ever seen there before.

GQ swallows, hard, and makes himself take his hand off the damn egg, and straightens up, quick. "Okay, go for it," he says, and it comes out only a little hoarse. Totally fine.

Croc's eyes flicker, squeezing a little at the corners like something's funny. He reaches down and covers the egg up, easy as anything, smooths the sand down over it but not too hard, and leaves it there, in the warm yellow light of the heat lamp.

"All right," GQ says, levering himself up off the couch. "Cool. Great. So I should get going, I guess—"

He's about to step off the edge, down onto the stairs that go into the water. And then he isn't, because Croc's caught him by the arm, the shoulder.

"GQ," Croc says, and doesn't let go: holds GQ there, and then draws him in, grips him by the nape of the neck with the other hand and leans in until their foreheads bump. "Thanks."

GQ swallows again, and lets his eyes fall shut, and for a second he just lets himself have this. He doesn't try to keep his distance, he doesn't push Croc off. He lets himself have it, lets himself feel it, Croc's hands on him and Croc's scaly face against his, Croc crowding him close; Croc saying his name like that, quiet and low in his throat.

"I got you, man," he says softly, the next-best thing to all the stuff he can't say, all the stuff he doesn't have the balls to blurt out right to Croc's face. Not yet, anyway, he lets himself think. Not yet. But maybe sometime. "I got you. You know that, right?"

"Yeah," Croc says. "You got somewhere to be?"

GQ shifts back far enough to raise an eyebrow at him. "I don't know, you got something in mind?"

Croc reaches for the inset shelf over the sofa. "Beer?"

His other hand's still around the back of GQ's neck, thumb sliding up the side of GQ's throat. He doesn't seem inclined to move it.

And GQ's never been all that great at making the smart play.

"Yeah, okay, twist my arm," he lets himself say, and it's only then that Croc lets go of him, lets him sit back down on the couch and flip Croc's TV on, thumbs the top off the beer and hands it to him.

It's not everything GQ wants; but it's pretty goddamn close. He'll take it.


End file.
